3 Ways to Backup Outlook Emails – Manual and Automatic

Reasons why backup Outlook emails

Backing up Outlook emails is an important task that should be given due consideration. Emails are one of the most important communication tools in a business or personal environment and their loss can have a significant impact on both sides.

There are various reasons why you might want to backup your Outlook emails. Some of the most common reasons include:

Accidental deletion: It is easy to accidentally delete an email and regret it later. If you have a backup of your emails, you can easily restore them.
Hardware failure: Hard drive crashes or computer failures can lead to data loss. Having a backup will ensure that you do not lose all your emails.
Ransomware: Ransomware is a type of malware that encrypts your data and demands a ransom to restore it. If you have a backup, you can simply restore your data without paying a ransom.
Lost accounts: If you lose access to your email account, you may lose all your emails. Having a backup will ensure that you still have access to your data.

In this article, I will discuss why it is important to backup Outlook emails, and the various methods to backup different versions of Outlook emails.

How to backup Outlook 2007/2016/2019 emails

There are several ways to backup Outlook emails. Here are three common methods: export to a file, drag and drop, use a third-party software. These methods enable you to save your Outlook emails and ensure you can access them in case of data loss or system failures.

• Backup email on Outlook 2007/2016/2019 using Drag and Drop
• Backup email on Outlook 2007/2016/2019 with Export Wizard
• Backup email on Outlook 2007/2016/2019 with best email backup software

Backup email on Outlook 2007/2016/2019 using Drag and Drop

1. Open Outlook containing emails you want to backup and File Explorer.

2. Select the email you want to backup in Outlook. Then, drag and drop it into a new folder in File Explorer on your computer where you want to save the emails. If you want to backup multiple emails, hold down the Ctrl key while selecting emails.

Backup email on Outlook 2007/2016/2019 with Export Wizard

Outlook has an inbuilt import/export wizard that lets you backup emails and other data from Outlook to other locations. It will export your Outlook data in PST format and you can restore it in PST format when needed. Follow the steps below to learn how to backup Outlook emails.

1. Open Outlook and click on the "File" tab in the top-left corner of the window.

2. Click on "Open & Export" and then select "Import/Export" from the dropdown menu.

3. In the Import and Export Wizard, select "Export to a file" and click "Next".

4. Select "Outlook Data File (.pst)" and click "Next".

5. Select the mailbox or folder you want to export. You can choose to include subfolders if you want to export everything in your mailbox. Click "Next".

Tip: You cannot select multiple folders with the “Export to a file” feature. To make it, you need to repeat the entire steps multiple.

6. Choose a location to save the PST file and give it a name. Click "Finish".

7. If you want to add a password to the PST file, select "Set password" and enter a password. Click "OK".

8. Outlook will begin exporting your mailbox data to the PST file. This may take some time depending on the size of your mailbox.

Backup email on Outlook 2007/2016/2019 with best email backup software

Instead of using Outlook's built-in export wizard to backup Outlook to other locations, you can choose an easier and more flexible method such as the best Outlook backup software AOMEI Backupper Professional to automatically run Outlook backup to your desire locations. It offers you all-around Outlook backup solutions:

☪ It offers you the “Outlook Backup” feature to backup the entire Outlook mailbox including mail folders (Inbox, Outbox, Drafts, etc.), Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Notes, and more.
☪ It will enable incremental backup in a scheduled task and other options like normal compression to reduce the size of the backup image. So you can backup more data with less space.
☪ It allows you to backup Outlook to multiple locations such as internal and external disks, USB drives, NAS devices, network locations, SD cards, cloud services, etc.
☪ It allows you to run scheduled backup tasks with “Daily”, “Weekly”, “Monthly” or “Event triggers”. And you can even wake the computer to run scheduled task when you are not using the Outlook app.

Download this best email backup software to start backup Outlook emails automatically:

The Professional version only supports Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, XP and Vista. Try AOMEI Backupper Server if you are server user.

Step 1. Open Outlook and log in with the account that contains the mailbox you want to backup.

Step 2. Launch AOMEI Backupper Professional and click Backup and Outlook Backup.

Step 3. Click Add Outlook data and select the account mailbox you want to backup. Then click OK.

Step 4. Click the second box to select a local path, network or NAS location, or cloud drive to save your Outlook mailbox data.

Step 5. Enable “Daily”, “Weekly”, “Monthly” or “Event triggers” intervals to automate the backup tasks and click Start Backup to finish this process.

◐ The Event triggers only support backup PST files at system startup, and user log on. If your mailbox contains .pst file, don’t use this feature.
◐ To prevent backup disk full issues, the most effective method is to delete old backup images on a regular basis. Click Backup Scheme and enable it.

Your turn

You can learn how to backup Outlook emails using the provided 3 ways on this page both manually and automatically. It is obvious that if you prefer a more flexible and automatic way to enable that, the best email backup software AOMEI Backupper can be your exact choice.

Besides the Outlook backup feature, it can also help you enable Windows 11 sync folders easily and fast between 2 devices. Come and try it immediately.